An Empty Epitaph
by Parade Of Fools
Summary: The aftermath of the game has led Shugo to question the boundaries of the game. Problems arise as masses of people are again placed into a coma... And those who were formerly known as the dot hackers, are no more. Now its time to rise, and help the fallen
1. Chapter 1 The End of the Begining

_Mother, god within the world _

_Morgana code shall not fail _

_Her child of Death shall arise from the wave_

_And cause calamity upon our grand pave_

_One named of beautiful sky_

_silenced and blinded by deaths destructive chime_

_Come forth heroes, dispair will rain _

_upon the soul of the heavy hearted._

W.B. Yates

Shugo woke up abruptly in the middle of the night.Looking softly into the black night sky. There was a constant hum from the computer that he used to access the world. He didn't log off properly because he disowned the idea of having to turn on the computer and wait fot the stuff to load. He was bored and he still had many questions to ask Aura. Like how did you know where to find me? And other questions, ones that he had sought to be answered.

He looked back at the computer, remembering that Rena had taken her's to her room so that they could play seperately, because sometimes when they ended up yellin at each other, their words would stumble into the speaker of the headset and be spoken into the world.

He looked out his door checking to see if Rena was awake. _Maybe I should just log on by myself. Rena stil doesn't want to talk or even see Zefie at the moment. _He got up wrapping a blanket around himselfand taking a seat on the cold chair. Placed the head set on and increased thevolume a bit so he could hear some of the cahts of the other people. He logged on without taking a glane at the BBS board, there were new ones but he tried not to see it. _Now which world am I in again? _The monitor turned bright and suddenly he found himself in Mac Anu.

He liked the theme song for this server, he was only lv 31, and this place was too low level for him to come and train anymore, although, since there were some newbies, besides himself, it was an easy place to trade for healing itmes with the players that were role playing merchants. Shugo looked around noticing that even though it was like 3 am in the Japanese server, it was still lively as ever. There was party of scantly dressed girls trying to buy some optimal equipment from an ax-man.

"Please sir, I really want that raccon cap, la repth would really help my party," spoke a a young female wavemaster dressed in blue baggy clothing. Her hair was blue also but her eyes were a distinct type of green that looked like emeralds.. The Heavy ax-man spoke out in a harsh and booming voice that made Shugo fidget.

"You newbie, this thing is hella rare. 5000 gold is nowhere near enough to pay for this. But i will take your rod, I've never seen that before." The girl stood in terror and you could hear a slight whimper coming from the speaker. _Raccoon Cap huh? _Shugo looked at his invetory noticing that he had the item, and it was nowhere near the price had stated.And Shugo had absolutely no use of such a low ranking item. Shugo looked around, and approached the crowd of lv 5 and 10s that were falling for the mediocer equipment.

"Do you want the thing you stupid girl?" the heavy ax man in a bulky green blue armor spoke again with a more snobbish voice, that almost madeShugo pk him on the spot, even if it was off limits inTheWorld. Shugo took a look at the staff that the girl was weilding. It was a red crossedrod at the tip with a circle around the edge near the tips. Shugo thought to himself, _that doesn't look too common. I guess I'll help._

Shugo went up to the girl and offered a trade, with a smile on his face. He opened a private chat with her. "You can have this for free, that guy is trying to rip you off big time." The girl responded and accepted the trade, offering 2500 gold. "No you can have, just give me a fortune wire." She did and never responded to Shugo's chat. She hit the command bow to Shugo and walked off. The guy started yelling. "You asshole, you gave her a raccoon cap didn't you?"

He was in fury noticing that he had lost a chance at a rather peculiar item in the world. Rare items were seldom seen by others, but Shugo had quite a stash for himself considering all the data draining that he had done himself.

Usually whenever he was with Mireille and he had found a rare item, he was forced to data drain the poor saps until he had a spare to give her. He traded her the one that he had one without the data drain because she thought of it as cheating but in turn would trade something of equal value.

"Did you hear me Newbie? You just killed my chance!" He had stopped all business and was direct with Shugo.

_Aww did I hurt your feelings?_ "Aw you can't find one on your own?"

"Does that matter to you?" He looked down at Shugo climbing closer. He was lv. 50 but the armor and weapon that he had were abysmal. He couldn't handle the monster in the higher lv. areas. Shugo's own equipment ranked 52 thanks to the help of Ouka who forced him to come training with her so that he could gain a few levels. Sure he had died multitudes of times, bouth as time progressed he got use to the combat and hardly ever died.

Technically in The World doing these kinda things, taking a low level player to a higher one was common. However only good freinds brought their freinds like this. Others usually used it to their advantage to bring low lv. ones and then gate out right before he or she could engage leaving the poor souls to die.

"Cmon noob lets PvP. I'll wipe you out like the newbie you are." He was going to the chaos gate waiting for me to follow.

_Ouka said that I should PvP every now and then, I can get much exp and learn some new stratagies. But she did say to watch the levels of others._

"What you chicken!" Shugo was getting frustrated._ God this guy can't shut up. _

"Fine then whelp, I'll show you the power of a Newbie." He followed and so did a number of others that had watching including the low ranked characters.

Shugo tried to recall the rules of PvP keeping in mind the consequences.

If a player died they lost all that they held, and they lost 3 of the lowest rankeditemsthat they equiped, including anything that was in their inventory. If their weapon was taken it was immediantly replaced with the noobiest weapons of the game, in Shugos case, beginer blades.

Everyone joined in.

_Mph a normal late night log in turned into a battle. What a way to begin the day. _

The Ax-Man cried,"Bursting PassedOver Aqua Field!"

A ring of light absorbed Shugo and the rest taking them to the designated arena.

The light went off, "Kill them all!" There was an uproar and heavy-ax man and heavy blades began strinking the low levels leaving only a handfull of them in moments._The bastard had led us to a PK zone_, and once you were engaged there was no logging out.Soon the living were replaced with shades whom cried desperately for their items. It was a ghost field. All that stood left was Shugo and a Pole Arms. He was only lv 15, and he was standing beside Shugo.

Their opponents were 5 lv. 50s. Two heavy axman, and 3 heavy blades, a power crew.

The pole arms jumped at the heavy blades taking advantage of thier heavy weapons while casting on himself a few stat raisers. _Wow the guy may be in a low level body, but he has some fighting experience._ A red aura appeared on Shugo and apparently the guy had casted something to help Shugo.

The Heavy axman ran at Shugo.

"You call this fair you bastard?" Shugo said as they grinded weapons, briefly until Shugo had to disengage to worry about his allied ax-man. The air got thick in Shugo's room. There was much adreniline coursring through him. And he liked it.

"Wolfs Bane!" Shugo used the item twice bringing his and the Pole Arms accuracy.

_Gesssh I'm sweating buckets here._Shugo was barely making it as he slashed at the raiders. Shugo watched his health knowing that if he were to get hit, it could be a serious blow that would end him.

_Dam these guys are ametuers. They only do forward slashs ignoring the sides leaving them open. _

"Kyaaaa," Shugo knocked down the other ax man and finished him off.

"Staccatto!" Shugo did a flurry of slashs knocking out the ally. The bastard that had set him up responded by reviveing him, Shugo wasn't gona let that happen and struck a fatal blow again to his fallen comrade. The processcontinued again, as the other guy screamed at his ally for reviving him at the worsest time. Finally he stopped reviving him, he had run out of ressurrections. And was now diverting his attention to Shugo.

"Time to put you in your place boy." The Ax-man whoms name still remained a mystery to Shugo, started hacking. There was a scream from the other side.

The pole arms was knocked out from the remaining2 Heavy Blades. Apparently he was ableto knock one of them out. Quite a feat for such a low level to do. Esspecially despite thee fact that he had to hit thems 100s of time to bring them down, if they forgot to heal.

There was a silent chat opened with Shugo suddenly. It was the pole arms. "Sorry man, I can't take down that many at this level..."

Shugo responded," its alright, I think I can hanlde whatever else they try to throw-"

"MOVE TO YOUR RIGHT!" Shugo jumped dogding the devastating swing that the player thew.

"Err thanks." _I forgot that when your dead you can keep talking..._

"RA RIA ROM!"Thunder flashed everywhere leaving the bandits glowing red. Then a moon appeared putting the others to sleep. The bandits started cursing. The leader yelling that he thought that they had killed off all my allies. Shugo sat down, _who did do that? _He started by reviving the pole arms, and noticed that his hero had been the girl with the red staff from before. She bowed down casting la repth, puting Shuogs health to natural standards.

She bowed. "Thank you for the help a while ago. He was trying to take all 7000 of my gold, but when I declined he went after the staff."

Shugo looked at her avatar and noticed that she had some rather cute features. Her clothes might have been baggy, but they looked easy to move in with a closer look.

"Thanks for the help." The pole arms spoke, he was still a ghost.

_Oh crap I forgot to ressurect him! _Shugo fumbled the controller and used a recovery item on him. He was covered in light and brought back to the plane that both Shugo and the wavemaster had been.

"Your pretty good. The names Alistor, you had quite some guts to attack head on like that. His equipment had been recovered since he had been in Shugos party and was victorious.

"The names Shugo nice ta meetcha freind, Shugo said jokingly." Shugo walked up to the bandits giving them their death sentence. The feeling when he killed them was self gratifying, sure he didn't kill all of them, but this was a simple way of victory nonetheless.

Again the Wave master bowed," the names Arukasa." She smiled gave the smile command, and Shugo couldn't help but blush when he noticed that she lookd really cute.

She had Mireille's look although it had a older appearance that made her more mature.

Shugo then took the chance to check his inventory of the loot he had obtained from slaying the bandits. It was all weak, and Shugo took notice to all the items that his new freinds could have. A bunch of elemented sprears, and wardrobes that could make a low level wavemaster feel like a princesses wardrobe. _Maybe, I should_ _visit Aura, she might be able to tell me something..._ The screen flashed and the people around him dissapeared and Shugo found himself face to face with a giant red monster.


	2. Chapter 2 Angel of Death

"Where is the key to the twilight..." _What the hell is that thing? _

A collossus figure stood hovering a distance away from Shugo. It was a rock like substance that had taken a humane form. The area he was in also changed into some destoyed stoned terrain that was edgeing vibrating colors.

"Where is the key twin blade..."

"I don't know what the hell you are talking about."

"Then die mortal, and praise the name Morgana code." It raised a huge arm and thrusted boulders at Shugo and he could feel the devastating damgae that it inflicted on him. The boulders kept tumbling down and Shugo tried his best to dodge for his life. Until finally he was able to find a pattern in the falling stones and could make some strikes at the creature. Until finally some words flashed, "data drain okay"

The monster lept away from Shugo's range.

"You possesse the power of data drain?"

"Get away from me! Data drain!"

"Haahaha pathetic mortal, you are not the only one who can obtain such a simple code. BETA DRAIN!" (Yes, I made this up! Its for the story.)

Shugo's bracelet shut off during the data drain process and he fell to his knees and was afflicted by a death spell that came off of the bracelet.

"Goodbye mortal..."

"What the hell are you..."

"Shugo what the hell are you doing on the computer?" The screen shut off and someone removed the headset from his face. It was Rena and she seemed rather mad that I was going on really late at night to play games.

"What do you think you;re doin-" she stopped and took a good look at Shugo's face. "Oni-chan... Your face is filled with sweat, is something wrong."

"Uh no... I just got really deep into a pker." _I can't tell her of what I saw..._

"You shouldn't be playing so late at night Shugo its really bad for your health." The monitor turned on and it was a full blank screen. "Hey, what in the world is going on Shugo?" Shugo was looking at her hand which was still gripping the cable outlets... "Shugo?"

There was a flash and there went some rather erie music. Rena placed on the headset.

"Shugo! You've been hacking into my account?"_Huh? What was she talking about? I was just logged in as Shugo._

"I swear that it wasn't me!" I was worried now. "Rena take off the head set..."

"What the hell does the monitor tell you?" She was right, instead of the twin blade Shugo, stood the heavy blade Rena. The music broke off into a freny and hellish.

"HAHAHA." There is nowhere to run! If I can't take you, I'll jst take the next thing closest to you!"

"Oni-chan whats going on? I.. I... I can't take off the headset." Shugo grabbed the head set but to no avail, it was somehow strapped on.

"Now face your punishment, BETA-"

"Shugo! Help me! I can't move my body!" The screen flashed into a white hub and the avatar floated to the center encased in a blue aura. The same when Shugo used data drain so that the monsters couldn't escape. "Shugo!"

"DRAIN!"

"RRRRREEEENNNNAAA!"

"Shugo what the hell is going on in here? Why are the both of you still awake its so late at night, I don't care if its a weekday!" Shugo's mom was screaming and his dad with sleepy eyes just kept nodding along.

"Mom... Mom.. Mo...Mom somethings wrong with, with Rena." Rena was slumped against the chair.

"She's just asleep?" Shugo's mom shook Rena, but she didn't wake up. They started yelling, and my mom being a nurse yelled, "Oh my god she's in a coma!"


	3. Chapter 3 Disaster

"BEEEP BEEEP NEW E-MAIL" The monitor rang before it shut off... And then once more before all the power died. Shugo could hear it, but there was no time, Rena was being rushed off the hospital. At the hospital,Shugo could smell the sterile enviornment, and it started to get on his nerves. The doctor came later and gave an analyisis, and said that he had never seen anything like it. While in a coma a persons heart beat drops significally low. But in her case, it would switch between 3 paces. Normal, fast, ans slow and that it could be fatal if it kept up at that rate. The doctor could only say that he had seen something like this, more like heard, in an even about four years ago.

_Four years ago... Weren't we searching on stuff about that? _Shugo was recalling when they were searching on info to help Zefie... _Maybe, I should talk to Aura. What am I thinking? Games at a time like this, Rena was in some type of life and death situatio. But...I...I'm sure that the answer that I'm looking for is in The World..._

I got back home later... After talking to the doctor that she just suddenly fell asleep. My parents were crying, and said that I could skip school tomorrow... There was only a few people that I could tell about this... Shugo sat in front of the television, rubbing his hand against the sofa, feeling the saft warm texture. "We bring you a special news bulletin, a 4 year-old child was old placed into intesive care, being watched for a coma. The statement from the doctor was that she was probably playing a game to much also known as the World... Parents be advised to place caution into the number of hours your kids play games. This could be some type of new-" Shugo turned off the t.v.

_Huh? That seems familiar. I wonder._ It was already 11 in the morning and Rena was sleeping in the hospital. The game was on stand-by after the event. _Maybe I should check the BBS board? What am I thinking? I don't have the kind of will to look around the net for info... That was always Mirelle's job... Wait... Nah it can't be._

Shugo reached for the phone and looked at an adress book of all his friends. He had her number, but he couldn't help but feel extrememly worried. So he dialed the number most reluntantly and waited for an answer.

"Hello?" The voice was under some rather deep distress.

"Hello may I speak to Mirelle?"

"Shugo is that you?" Shugo was surprised to hear the voice. It was an elderly woman, not old but probably in her late 20'.

"Miss-" he was cut off from his reply.

"Oh my god..." She was crying... "Shugo, she's in intensive care," Shugo's horrible hunch had been correct, and he started to worry that he had jinxed the problem.

"Uh... Miss I-"

"Just call me Mistral."

"Er Mistral... What happened?"

"What do you think? She was playing the world... And suddenly this erie theme went off at full blast... the same theme that they used..."

"Theme what theme?"

"The phases, from four years ago..."

"Did you try to take off the haedset?" He was retracting from his problem.

"I tried, but, but then I heard it... Just like Kite used, but it was a different name... And they could talk now it could talk..." She was sobbing terribly, and Shugo couldn't help but feel like he had something to with the event."Shugo I'm gona call you later..."

"Whats wrong Mistral?"

"I gotta call Kite..The dot hackers..." The name rang through my head,it sounded vaguely familiar. She hung up before Shugo could say anything. He looked at the monitor, noticing the core of all their problems. He turned it on, watching if something was going to happen, like if the same white background would falsh up, but it didn't. There were two new emails. He remebered that they were from before they left.

The first one he read had a blurred out name, as did the face. He opened it regardles, of worrying about as virus. It was from Aura...


	4. Chapter 4 Crushed

Shugo logged into the world immediantly after reading the message from Aura. He was in a hurry to get there, tapping the monitor inhopes that it would speed up the process. Of course it didn't work, but something did keep his mind busy while the monitor began to spring for life. _Why is it that I'm not crying... Rena, she's in a coma because of me... Does this make me heartless?_

"Stop it Shugo! If you keep up like this, its only gona drag you down!" He began to hit himself until finally he put on the HUB and logged into the world.

The music played the simple Mac Anu theme, and he felt himself calm down. It was hopeless to feel bad so he began to phych himslef out by telling himself that He could save Rena, that is with the help of Aura. Crowds passed on by like he was a nobody, which was true. A magic portal appeared in front of him and his movement halted.

"Arukasa?" The young girl bowed to him, and replied.

"Good afternoon Shugo-san." She clicked smile and Shugo couldn't help but blush. It wass just a game, but something about Arukasa seemed so real.

"Whatcha doing?"

"Waiting for you to log in." It sounded rather creepy but Shugo knew that she was just trying to be nice.

"So... I'll be seeing you around." Shugo started to walk pass her towards the portal so that he could reach Aura. An unbalanced tapping of foot prints followed him. "You need something?" Shugo was trying to be nice, no less to the fact that this person was a girl.

"Will you form a party with me?" She started to wave her wand around, and despite its huge size didn't seem to strain her avatar or anything.

"Uh, I'm kinda busy at the moment." She frowned at Shugo. "But will you wait here for me then? I just wana meet with some freinds and they told me to come alone." Her expression changed again, as if she were in disgust. "Hey, hey now, I'm not a hacker! And I'm not doing anything odd."

"Fine... I'll wait for you here." She walked off probably towards the center of the city to get something. Shortly after he recieved a members adress from the person.

"Finally." Shugo walked to the portal and pronounced a new password. Aura would ocasionally change the passcode to her domain in order to prevent any hostilities between the players. She always barred the area with a "A virus core". Shugo's screen changed into the gate hacking options. He placed a virus core into the monument. His stock was running thin and he would soon have to collect more. It was a difficult chore.

Shugo began to warp, the bright white lights and the colorful streams of data made him squint. When he rached his destination, there was usually a white light before he emerged, however, this time it took the color of brown and green. It was familiar.

Shugo looked around at the dry land. _Some choice for scenery _Shugo thought. _Maybe Aura's not in a good mood?_

Blasts of light flew from the sky and Shugo knew where his next destination would be. He pulled through the item commands revealing the grunty flute and executed. He blew the flute to summon a Rocker grunty, jumped off and raced to the directionof the lights.

It was distant but came closer real quickly. To Shugo's horror, the area that he had reached was filled with monsters. The lights he had seen were monster portals raining from the heavens.

"AURA!" Shugo screamed frantically and dimounted the grunty. He looked around noticing something familiar it was Rena! "Rena your alright!" Shugo ran the heavy blades side, but the voice that greeted him wasn't what he had expected.

"What the hell are you blabling about Kite?" _Kite?_

"Blackrose?"

"Shugo?" A radiating light flashed towards them abd it was too late to dodge. they took the full hit and Shugo's health bar began to flash frantically. The music that played slowly in the background made him feel a sense of fear rush all over his body. Before he could acess a health potion, light surrounded him rejuvinating all his hit points. "Thanks Mistral."

"Focus! Or your gona get hit again! 0" An avatar that resembled Mirrelle(Sorry if its spelled wrong!) appeared dispatching some invisibles.

"Mistral! Where is Kite?" They completly ignored the fact that he was there. shugo still didn't have a clue on what was going on.

"I think he's up there nya!" There was an island pointing towards the North, and a familiar figure stood there tall. It was the stone menace that he had encountered earlier. And near it was Kite; Shugo had met with him before, only very few but the guy was great to be around with, not to mention that he was ike a god at the game. They had a sparring match once and the fight that he had with Balmung was nothing compared to the fight with him. Shugo watched for a moment keping in mind that there was a battle going on around him.

"Shugo! Go up there and help Kite! Its not safe to take Skeith alone!"

"You guys know what that thing is?" Shugo just got engaged by another Invisible and he tried to time the buttons so that he could parry it away. It seemed that everything here was Lv. 99. And one good hit could send him to the plane of hell. "Did you hear me?"

Shugo hardly knew these people, from his past experience with Blackrose, she was always, imaptient. He was also but she made the word impatient taken to an entirely newlevel. "I'm going I'm going!" Shugo ran off watching as Mistral somehow casted numerous support spells on him. Its not like they would help becuase his health was like in the 800s. These guys would hit a devastating 3000 and up. A sheet of white cloth ran up to Shugo and it started to stay by his side, its skin was pale but its hair was blonde.

"Oni-chan! something is happening, abd I can't find my mommy anymore." She was crying, and it started to make Shugo panick.

"Zefie, can these things hit you?" He was getting worried. He didn't want to have her deleted.

"I don't know! But they can hurt my mommy! Thats all I know!"

"Stay behind me then! We're gona find Aura!" He was going to look for her, but he couldn't help but feel guilty that he was leaving Kite behind. He was super high leveled and he was... It wasn't going to help at all.

"Shugo! I think he's up there on that island!"

"With Kite?" Her avatar let go of my hand to point towards the island and quickly came back to reclaim its space. It seemed that he was going to meet face to face with that thing again. Willow wisps continued to strike at shugo but something happened. A strange barrier appeared nulling all the damage. Zefie had been capable to produce a temporary shield. Something bleeped on his screen and Zefie's face appeared stating that she wanted to be invited to his party. He quickly agreed and was suprised that she was able to render such an action. Her face appeared to the bottom of the 3rd person view, revealing her face. Her hit points were 10... max. But her SP ranged into 999. And was recovering from the spell that she had just casted. "Thanks Zefie."

"No problem oni-chan." They ran across the hoard of enemies, and Zefie waould cast the shield to give Shugo's hands some rest time after parrying so many mosters. It seemed that if you could parry, you could probably take down these kinda mosters.

"How are we gona get up there? They expect me to jump?" Zefie tapped the bracelet and they were surrounded by a glyph. And it slowly rose taking them to hell. Shugo looked down. The map was filled with monsters and he could see Blackrose in the distance fighting along side Mistral. There were others with them now, including Balmung and Orca. Ouka was fighting with Kaz, and they were able to hold off the crazy number of opponents. And sadly there was a steady stream of portals falling to replace the felled beasts.

"Oni-chan, get ready this is it." Zefie went behind Shugo as they were nearing the base of the island. There was sounds of what seemed to be lasers exploding from the top... Shugo gulped. There was about 30 seconds before combat so he tried to remove the HUB to wipe the sweat from his face. But he couldn't. It was like before but now he was glued into it and there was no turning back.

They reached the top-"SHUGO!" Zefie raised the barrier and deflected the red beam that had been aimed precisely at them. He would have died, and there had been time to get away from it, realinzing that he was becoming careless.

Kite was there Aura, floating behind him just as Zefie held to Shugo. Aura was supporting him also with a similar method. As the waves shot towards Kite she refelcted by countering with spells nulling the effects. She was more of an offnesive than Zefie. "Kite! Watch out. When it starts to glow watch out for that wave."

"So you have come back mortal... Thanks for allowing me to finish the job... I can rid of you and the original father." Shugo hesitated to move as he realized that he was scared beyond his imagination. The scenery changed and the sky turned into a velvet blue. The wind died down and the area around them vanished. The floor was gone, so Shugo couldn't tell what would happen to the others. Zefie clung closer to him as it began to amass at the center of the stadium. He toggled an invite to Kite who agreed to it rather swiftly, Shugo had forgotten to prepare for the event. His inventory was slim but he held a nifty amout of recovery scrolls.

Shugo regrouped with Kite and they were quiet. "Don't get near it Shugo... It'll acess the skill judgement. And whatever you do, don't let your health don't drop below half. Otherwise he'll be able to data drain you." _He knows a lot about this thing._

"Do you know this thing?" He recovered Zefie SP, it seemed that he she had used a large amount from the last strike. He only had 32 Emperor Souls, and 98 Artisans Souls.

"That is the first of the wave, Skeith. It was the guardian of the World to maintain balance and peace. But The wave hawd altered his judgement rendering to the state right now." His voice was unsure but Shugo believed everything that he was saying. "There is still one thing that relly bothers me though. We had deleted him in the past. Destroyed all of them and prevented the death of all the people." _So they did fight this thing. _

"Oni-chan... Get ready." She braced herself, as if she knew that something was about to happen. Shugo could hear Kite's gruff breaths, he was tired.

"How long have you uys been here_?"He personally had just stumbled into the battle_.

"I've been here for about 30 minutes. Aura, called me on my cell phone_." She can do that?_

"Shall I end this now then?" The rock figure was coveredin thin green plates. It was now impregnable until they could data drain... But the only way to do that was to hit him, a lot. Kite ran infirst and Skeith countered with ablue wave. Arua instantly reacted by releasing ared light causing mist to rise. Kite pounced out and struck Skeith square in the face. Skeith stepped back from the hit and nearly staggered to stay on his feet. Kite was incredible.He never logged in often but he was the least bit rusty. And actually, it seemed that he was just warming up. The blades that he was weilding werea mix of a dark black blade, and one sanctioned with holy light.

Shugo ran towards Skeith, pouncing to the side when rays were fired at him so that he wouldn't consume too much of Zefie's SP. He struck its upper abdomen, and reacting quicky after released a skill.

"Thunder Dance!" Shugo went into a flurry of cominations hitting Skeith constantly, and right when it ended Kite jumped in striking next.

"Fire Wheel!" He spun around his face striking him in a blaze of beauty. The way he fought, it was almost like it was an art.

Skeith vanished appearing before Shugo. He swung an srm and Shugo timed the parry. It was sucessful. He blocked it and Zefie released the barrier sending Skeith back. Shugo started to breath hard. His hands were getting tired but it almost felt as if he were the one swinging the weapon. His arms growing weary from the continuous strikes.

Skeith vanished again this time at Kite who fought back by releasing another Fire Wheel, making Skeith disappear all over again. He as getting tired as the fight pressed on. So many things ran into his head. _What of the others? Are they alright? What will happen to them if they die? Aura can call you by phone?_ He had blanked out from the fight completely... It was a horrible mistake.

"JUDGEMENT!"

"Shugo get outta there!" Zefie started to scream.

"I can't take a hit like that Onic-chan! We must get to safety." She tried to pull him and even though it would have no effect on him. Shugo was petrified. _Is this really then end... for me..._

It wasn't. Kite ran in taking the full blow. Crimson ice wrapped around his body, and he tried to struggle out of it but to no avail. Arua was encased also and Shugo didn't want to know what would happen next.. Skeith unleashed a flurry of wave and they tore through the ice like paper. Th screen flashed and Kite's health flashed.

"Victim number one." Kite rose and a pillar held him from raising his hands.

"KITE!" Shugo had gotten him into this mess. He ran up to Skeith and kept swinging but it had no damage. He just kept up with what was on his agenda.

"BETA-"

"Shugo tell Black Rose, that I'm sorry I can't make her graduation!"Aura nodded to Zefie.

"Mother! No mommy please." She was cryingand she wouldn't leave Shugo's side.

"Don't worry Zefie. Mother will be alright. As long as Kite is. Shugo, please be careful, its up to you and the bracelet that I have embodied with you. Here." There was a flash and Something left Kite's hand. Shugo looked and the golden bracelet was surrounded by a green light and in turned sea blue. There was a second ring attached on his arm.

"Kite's braclet?"

"Don't worry, where I'm going I won't be needing it..."

"DRAIN." The familiar lights went through Kite draining him of his color... He fell down, like stone, but as for Aura, she diappeared, vanished without a trace. Kite was gone... And it was his fault... He had given up for a moment but got up. There was still infished business. He ran towards Skeith but was utterlu careless. A wave crushed him and Zefie hadn't been able to activate the barrier in time. His health flashed red also... He was about to meet the smae faith as Kite.

A glyph appeared below him... revealing a person dressed in white, her skin very much exposed. "I'm sorry but I can't let you take him away."

"Meddler of the world leave this plane..." Black Rose and Mistral appeared behind her.

"Where Balmung? Orca? Ouka and Kaz." They were quiet.

"I commend you Skeith for attacking us right in the center of our operation, but bear in mind we wil be back."

"WHERE ARE THE OTHERS!" He was enveloped into the glyph and he watched as Skeith turned around... Laughing at their losses.


End file.
